#HomeForTheHolidays

President Obama has already commuted the sentences of four people serving life without parole for nonviolent drug crimes. Please keep them coming, Mr. President!

Send These Unjustly Sentenced People Home for the Holidays
Because of our overly extreme sentencing laws, thousands of people will never spend another holiday season with their families. Instead, these people will be behind bars until they die for relatively minor crimes like shoplifting a jacket or selling a single crack rock. This is an injustice, but it’s not an injustice that’s set in stone. President Obama has the power to reduce these cruel and wasteful sentences, but the Obama Administration has used this commutation power less than any administration in recent history. It’s time for President Obama to reverse his record.

Catherine Matthews cries when she thinks about telling her son what she ate for Thanksgiving dinner, knowing that he will never be at their table again to eat with her. Patrick, her son, is 25. He’s already been in prison for three years and he’ll be there until he dies – all for stealing a few tools and a welding machine.

Joel Daigle suffers from bipolar disorder, and even though the man whose house he broke into didn't want him to go away for life, the judge had no choice but to sentence him to miss every Christmas until he dies.

Danielle Metz believes prosecutors indicted her just to try to force her to testify against her husband. When she couldn’t offer any useful information to trade for a lesser charge, Danielle ended up with a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

Ricky Minor's wife divorced him. His stepson died of a drug overdose. And his teenage daughter is being raised by her grandparents. And this is just one example of how families are affected by extreme sentencing.

DeLoice Lewis has extraordinarily difficult holidays. Her son, Quierza Lewis, was sentenced to die behind bars for possession of crack cocaine when he was 25. Because of a three strikes law, he'll never come home.

DeLoice said that she has been so devastated by her son's sentence that it has drive her to contemplate suicide. She said, "At one time, I say, I wish I could just drive into a river. And it would take it away, the hurt that I was having. The hurt that it was doing to me. I just wanted to drown at one time...I was really ready to commit suicide. that's the only thing I could think of, 'cause I couldn't help my child."